


caesura

by threefourthstime



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Twitch Plays Pokemon (Let's Play)
Genre: Gen, why
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threefourthstime/pseuds/threefourthstime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THE NEW BIG THING ON THE INTERNET: kids go on Pokémon journeys, get possessed, suffer a lot. Fun times are had by all.<br/>(A collection of oneshots.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5496369

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abe vs. Dream Red.

They always found him eventually.

It was getting a little strange, by this point. AJ–well, Red should have seen that one coming; and anyway it hadn’t been the best idea to follow the Helix up the mountain to destroy the world. No gods, et cetera. It had been weirder the second time. The girl (Cly, he’d been told) hadn’t seen him as more than another opponent. Without all the Voices’ excitement that battle might have been an afterthought, and Red would have been fine with that. This, though–he should have known they’d never let him alone. He was the first, and they were notoriously awful at letting things go. It shouldn’t have been anything new.

 _This_  part was, though.

This was a suspiciously familiar boy wearing  _his_  clothes and fidgeting with  _his_ Pokédex, but he had glasses perched in front of colorless eyes, and stranger than that was how he opened his mouth to speak.

“What–?” managed the boy. His voice was shaky and sounded like a failing VHS tape. “What is–where…who are you?”

Was this supposed to be him? Red wouldn’t have put it past the Voices, except that this boy looked subtly different. There was radio static flowing alongside his blood. Still. He could feel their influence around this new visitor, and so Red raised an eyebrow. The boy backed up and bumped into the wall several times.

“I-is this a dream? I thought we were…oh.” One of his hands, shaking, raised a Pokéball. “Do I have to fight now?–sorry–”

The Voices weren’t putting it off this time. Red took a step back and reached for the Master Ball.

The kid led with a Slowbro, which meant they had no idea what they were expecting. It withstood a Thundershock about as well as you’d expect, which was not at all. The same fate befell–huh. He’d chosen the Dome, then. (Red pushed down a reactionary wave of  _destroy it destroy it its heresy must not be allowed to continue, they will worship our greatness_. Honestly, Helix, he’d thought you were over this, and he’s his own person now anyways.) Next after that was a Parasect?

Well, Red had never expected to take a Venomoth to the Elite Four, either. (Neither had he expected…anything, but that couldn’t be helped.) The Parasect put Zapdos to sleep, a few times for good measure. And hit twice, and the messenger of anarchy fell.

Maybe they were getting better at this.

Except that they proceeded to try and conquer the Fonz with an underleveled Muk, so maybe not. But after that plan failed miserably, it turned out that the boy had a Cloyster, who knocked the Nidoking out with one hit. The boy lowered the map he kept folding between his hands and managed a shadow of a smile.

That–well. That wasn’t even fair. He remembered stumbling up to Blue for what seemed like the thousandth time with all the Voices’ commands ringing in his ears and no one had thought he’d be alive by the end, and here this kid was trying to talk over the Voices and he was trying to  _smile_  about it. Red wouldn’t have even  _survived_  them without the guidance of the Helix and  _he will pay for his transgressions_

This…might have been the point where Red started levitating off the ground ominously, and doing the apocalyptic death-glare thing. He reflected even as the battle continued that it might have been an overreaction, especially as the kid had already looked kind of terrified, and he wouldn’t be free of the Voices for another few weeks. There had to be at least some benefit to getting possessed multiple times, though, and Red had learned to take advantage of the little things, such as holding a familiar object, or floating.

The Parasect took down Lord Helix, too, after a long period of hesitation. (Familiar, if disorienting, just as always.) ATV, too. And then, as Red prepared to send out Air Jordan, the boy swallowed heavily and reached down and was holding a Master Ball. Red didn’t even have much time to wonder what was inside it ( _hopefully not another Goldeen_ –when he learned later that AJ had tried to support the boy, Red couldn’t really be surprised) and then there was a very familiar cry and well. A Zapdos.

The impostor was weaker, of course; and the Lapras’ attacks nearly knocked it out of the sky, but it still managed to deliver the final blow. And then, before Red could react, Bird Jesus had leapt from the Pokéball and screeched and the boy didn’t even hesitate and the not-angel used Thunder.

The boy stumbled and took a step back as he recalled the impostor. The gray of his eyes flickered in a blocky pattern and Red thought,  _glitches_ , and wondered if he’d been that way before the Voices had chosen him. Their influence still hung heavy in the air, even as Red returned the Pokéballs to his belt. Unlike the others, the boy didn’t sink to the floor. The Voices wouldn’t let him, yet.

He had a long journey ahead of him, Red realized. He might appear to have more control–but they still weren’t anywhere near done with him.

Red shook away the last of those turbulent emotions, stopped doing the ominous thing, then met the boy’s eye and nodded. (It helped that the Helix’s primary vessel was unconscious by this point; and Red was rather tired of the idea of vessels himself.) The kid still looked like he was freaking out. Red supposed that no one could blame him.

“You–” said the boy. “They know you. You were–first, weren’t you…?” He was fighting to speak, against more than the will of the Voices now. “–I’m Abe. I…d-didn’t mean to copy you. So, sorry. B-but–” And again, that small smile; and tired though it was, Red had no doubt that it was genuine. “–thank you.”

Red knew the Voices well.

Or he had, when he’d been their host. He hadn’t had any choice. He was getting the feeling now that they’d…changed, though. Somehow. Maybe a little less talking, and a little more listening.

But if they were at least as similar to their old selves as this boy…Abe…looked to him–

Abe disappeared, whisked off onto whatever the next step was to their quest. The same thing, over and over; and yet Red wasn’t sure it wasn’t changing. He hoped the _start9_  helped, at least for a few moments. The kid looked like he needed the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “back in MY day, you had to BE A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT PHENOMENON IN THE SNOW UPHILL BOTH WAYS” -- the first thing Red says in, like, a year,


	2. Log In or Sign Up to Play!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> long story short: lots of kids have died. Red's supposed to be one of them.

when Red collapses to the ground after the Elite Four, most people don’t realize just how close it was, towards the end. up until this point, before the majority of the mob swayed from mindless ledge-jumping to an almost-conscious  _plan_ , they’d been more of a legend than a force. there were tales of those affected by the Voices, but no one could come up with a who or a why. Red collapses and is unconscious in the hospital for days, and the first time he realizes he’s awake is at his house, where there’s something to hold onto again. people get the idea afterwards, of course. but from the beginning–

he realized it early on. Abby and Jay Leno were his decision, as much of his own action as he could manage. they couldn’t see what happened to him; they couldn’t be roped into this, or have something worse happen to them than being released. (he recalled this later, when his shaking fingertips were leaving red fingerprints on the keyboard, and was thankful.) the Helix gave him something to hold onto, something tangible to keep track of–and sometimes he thought he felt it reaching out to him, though at first he dismissed it as one of their many delusions. he didn’t understand why they’d sought him out, and yet he understood exactly what they wanted to do.

he was the most stubborn kid you’d ever meet; this was one of the facts that would never change, even once it was over. but stubbornness can’t take you everywhere. because when you have a hundred thousand voices screaming in your head, and each one has the same power you do except you’re outnumbered by a hundred thousand–it’s easy to lose track of which ones are yours, and from there it’s easy to lose that there was ever a  _you_  to begin with.

(this is where the Voices come from, of course. no one knows where the  _system_ started, exactly; but they’ve been growing for years, absorbing and growing by taking advantage of simple mistakes. it’s been this way for years. it’s just that now they’re starting to remember.)

most people wouldn’t have lasted to the second badge. (beat Misty, as it were.) Red, for all his tenacity, should never have made it to Cerulean. 

except that within the fossil something was awakening, opening its innumerable eyes for the first time in millennia. and it felt a trainer’s hands on its physical form, and saw all the chaos behind his eyes, and heard this new, upstart presence trying to take its place in the world, and thought:  _we can work with this._

each day the journey rushes forward, and each day the Voices erode another and another and another piece of their host; but there’s something else in their way now. it’s willing to work with them–there are worse evils, it thinks. the Helix never  _intends_  to protect Red; it needs a shell, and it would be better if there were no one left to occupy it. it has its own purposes.

(a god can never truly be on your side, after all.)

but when it fully awakens, it’s surprised to discover that one of the–no. not  _entirely_ one of the Voices, although this takes a double-take. this must be the original owner of the body, the Helix reasons. and the boy has, somehow, latched onto it–the mob might have nearly taken him, but as long as he has a symbol, something they aren’t in control of, something that never happened to all the trainers before (the Voices all maybe wanted to be champions, once) but that happened to  _him_ –

disasters happen. Bloody Sunday happens. the world has heard of him now; plenty think he’s an apparition, because they’ve never seen him breathing. the Voices don’t see the point in it, or maybe they just got distracted; they need a body in good condition, they need human-shaped but that doesn’t mean they need human. they swallow up everything Red hasn’t closely guarded; whatever’s left of him is hidden under  _helixhelixhelix_  until they can’t tell he’s there at all. there’s one voice–not a capital-V Voice, but getting there–that hardly talks except to give commands, and when it does  ~~it~~  (?) seems more careful than the others; and that one can’t remember what  ~~it’s~~   ~~they’re~~  what he’s holding on for, except that (praise Helix)  _he???_  can’t let go ( _start9_ ) until  ~~we~~  (riot) until they’re gone.

when he defeats Blue (left-a-left-a– ~~we~~  nonononono I….remember?–up-left-a-left-a–) the Voices stay until the Hall of Fame, and then they start to disappear and Red’s falling and everything goes dark. that singular Voice ( ~~we it they~~  ?????  _start9_  can’t be anything else now–) feels something the mob the others, fingers and wires dug in dragging it ( _nonono_ –victory riot– _no_ ) away and there’s always another host, no nostalgia, it’s part of the mob so it can’t stay  _I don’t want to go_

and silence.

 

* * *

 

most people don’t know. Oak does; he’s been a leading researcher on the Voices for years, ever since he met that pleasant, peculiar man with the computers. (the professor makes for a good simulation, as it turns out.) Blue knows, or at least as much as his grandfather has told him. his pokémon  _technically_  don’t, but they understand what’s supposed to happen. they know there should be nothing left of him.

but most people don’t. in this timeline, so far, he’s the only host to sort of, maybe,  _kind_ of survive–and sometimes he can’t even believe that much. sometimes he’ll find that hours have passed, and he’s wandered miles away. (the first time, his mother is sobbing again,  _the doctors said you were too fragile, I don’t want to lose you again._ he isn’t sure he wants to tell her.) sometimes it’s little things–he hasn’t said a word since that day, but his thoughts still slip into their speech patterns, sometimes, and he forces himself to try to come back. sometimes, despite knowing they shouldn’t, things just feel… _empty_ –and it’s enough to make him wonder if he even made it back, or if he’s just a part of them, pretending.

(and the helix says:

i saved you. i’m the one who preserved you.

i let you choose me over oblivion.

and don’t you think it’s time you returned the favor?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotta love that sudden, if temporary, shift to pretentious lowercase letters! gotta love it
> 
> (basically, the mob's modus operandi is to possess new trainers and absorb them into the hivemind! again, fun times are had by all. "but wait," you say, "i thought this was a meme" OK THAT'S TRUE BUT JUST HEAR ME OUT, OK)


	3. A Night Without Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrift in the darkness, Baba meets a familiar face.

It doesn’t hurt.

She’ll give the universe that much credit; if the void is planning to scour her from existence, at least it’s considerate about it. She’s still thrown for a loop, though, because one minute she’s punching a  ~~Rocket~~  Missile-Bomb in the face and the next she’s floating in the abyss. Well, that’s where the Voices get you. Sometimes they make you Champion, sometimes they chuck you in a metaphorical ocean. It all evens out.

Baba gets to thinking about it, though–what if she’s just another lost Host? What if she never  _was_  a Host, and she actually got deleted during that whole thing with Kakuna? What if Baba-the-trainer is just one of those kid-with-the-snowglobe things? (Then again, isn’t that pretty much the Voices’ whole schtick, anyway?)

She can find too many what-ifs out here in the infinite vastness of the void. Is this where she’s  _supposed_  to be? She looks at her hands–hands, not fins. Well, that answers one question out of a billion. Shoot, how long has she been out here? It feels like an eternity. She’s probably got a gazillion more eternities coming up.

It’s too quiet out here.

Well. If nothing else she’s always been good at waiting.

Baba waits, and waits some more, and soonish she realizes the infinite void isn’t looking particularly void-y at the moment. In fact she can make out thousands of multicolored lights glimmering in the distance, all pixellated and scattered. Well, at least it’s some nice scenery–wait was someone talking? Did she just hear something? Wait, come back!

She squints and tries to spin herself in the direction of the…person? It doesn’t work until she starts flailing her arms about; it’s not really a very elegant solution but she’s good at splashing around aimlessly, so this is fine. This time she knows she’s not imagining it, because she hears a really clear “Hello?” and that voice sounds really familiar…

She squints into the distance until a silhouette becomes clear, a silhouette with wide wings and oh–

“Charizard?” she says. Wow, her throat hurts. Was she screaming? She can’t remember those last few moments but she was probably screaming. Baba tries again–“Charizard!”–and this time the silhouette obviously hears her, so she resumes flail-paddling her way through the void and soon the lights clear out and that’s definitely Charizard, yep–washed-out and tired but definitely her, and she has a funny look on her face when Baba throws her arms around her.

“What,” she says, and then her eyes widen. “Baba?”

“Yeah! It’s me!” Baba pulls back with a grin. “Look, I have feet now!”

“That’s weird,” says Charizard. “But why…how are you here?”

“It’s kinda complicated. I’ve been traveling around Elf’s World and then something attacked me and I think I might be dead? But, wait.” Baba’s brow furrows. “That means…oh.” Her heart sinks. “The PC got you too, didn’t it?”

Her friend nods solemnly. “Most of us…didn’t make it.” One of her wings jerks. It’s weird–she almost flickers, like she’s not quite solid for a second. “I don’t know what happened to the others–if they’re even still out there.”

“Oh,” says Baba. “Are, I mean, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Charizard sighs, then nudges Baba’s shoulder. There’s another flicker. “But what about you? You’re a trainer now?”

Baba perks up. “Yeah! I got my first elf–”

“Pokémon, you mean?”

“No.”

And for a few minutes it goes like that. She talks about BEST–oh, BEST–about the growing team, about the various maulings she’s gotten to participate in, about finding her DADA…Charizard gives her a funny look when she mentions Deku, says she’s heard that name somewhere before. 

Then–well, then she gets to the last part. She doesn’t really like the last part.

“I dunno what happened,” Baba admits. “Everything just went all blocky and the colors messed up all of a sudden. It felt kinda like being shot? Except I don’t think I’ve ever got shot before. Maybe I was when I was a Magikarp, but that would be weird…”

Her friend’s face looks too concerned, and Baba has another sinking feeling, but she doesn’t want to think about it.

“Who’d shoot a fish, Char? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I knew they wouldn’t stop.”

“What?”

Charizard takes a deep breath. “Listen,” she says. “The glitches–they’re getting smarter. I don’t know if someone’s trying to control them, now, or what. But they’ll keep coming after you, and I don’t know  _why_ –but even IF we can get you back home it’ll only get worse. You have to keep fighting them, or…” She winces. “The last time I saw Abe, it wasn’t good. It’s not pretty, what the glitches will do to you.”

“You saw him…?” Baba shakes her head. “Wait, no. He has to be okay. The voices wouldn’t be with me if he wasn’t okay. If he didn’t win. Right?”

“I hope so,” says Charizard, and Baba gets the sense she’s not convinced. It’s a little panic-inducing–but he’s fine. Paras is fine, too. There’s a new team somewhere out there and they’re fine, they have to be. “It’s…going to be tough out there,” Charizard’s saying. “They’ll do anything. Just be careful, won’t you?”

“Right.” Baba nods. That’s a perk of being human, being able to nod. The downside is everything looks a lot more complicated.

“Promise me. I need you to promise you won’t get hurt out there.”

It helps not to think about it too closely, but–she gets the sense Charizard isn’t supposed to be here. She’s still the same, except a new code’s written itself under her skin. It’s not fair, she thinks. Charizard was always strong; even most the rest of the team could do  _something_. Baba was literally a fish.

But, she reminds herself, a very resilient fish.

Baba takes Charizard’s claws in her hands, and right now she doesn’t even mind the stabby bit. “I won’t,” she says. “And I’ll fix this. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

Soon enough she feels the tug of the stream again. It doesn’t exactly give her a warning–she has enough time to blink and then she’s back. She curls her hands into fists and reaches for her bag and wait, wasn’t she here already? What.

BEST is looking up at her with confusion, like in his eyes, nothing’s gone wrong. Well, if he’s fine, then Baba will be fine too. She stands up, brushes the dirt from her clothes. She’ll catch back up in no time.

There has to be a reason she survived the PC. This, too. BEST is watching her, waiting for her next move–and so is Charizard, and Abe, and so is everyone else.

“Don’t worry, guys,” she whispers, as the Voices wrap around her again and she takes a step forward. “You won’t have to wait much longer.”

 

* * *

 

“Do you really think that was worth it?”

The video slips gently into darkness. A boy half-smirks up at the massive screen before returning his eyes to the stadium before him. A Dragonite is already waiting by his opponent’s feet, but he hasn’t even bothered reaching for his Pokéballs yet. The Voices haven’t made it. They’re late again.

That means it’s working.

“Calm down,” he says, eyes glinting, then flickering to pure white. Words and code snake across his sleeves like some kind of weird fashion statement. “We know what they want. This is best for the both of us.”

“I can still hear them,” says the girl. “They know you’re here now. You’ve spent all this time hiding, and for what?”

He shrugs. “A couple days was all I needed,” he says, “and now what can they do about it?” His voice darkens. “Would’ve been nice if  _that one_  didn’t show up–but!” He claps his hands, forcing the smile back onto his face. “That problem’s gonna be gone soon enough.  _They_ ’ve only got one run left, and then what? No–the Voices will come back soon enough.”

“But what about the other hosts?” she presses. “And their teams, and stuff? I just don’t think we should…I mean…Rusty–”

“ _Don’t_ ,” he snaps, and the sky goes dark at the words.

“…Antares.” She sighs. “All I’m saying is, what do we even have to win from this? If anything goes wrong–”

“It won’t.” Antares lifts his gaze to the screen; it’s still frozen on black, loading slowly. They’re on their way. His expression slips into a smirk and he turns his back on his partner. Maya– _Vega_ , he reminds himself, she’ll take to the name soon enough–Vega still doesn’t get it. But she doesn’t have to. All she has to do is wait.

“Give it time,” he says, “they won’t know what hit them.”

He reaches at last for a Pokéball and the codes and incantations slip down his fingers; the surface of the orb shifts, shudders, flickers to black. He lets the spaces between shroud him, lets himself slide halfway into that malformed, broken corpse of a world, where the glitches try blindly to imitate their reflections. He lets them flock to him, holds out his hands:  _shh_ , he tells them, his grin hidden in shadow,  _you want to be real, don’t you?_

Besides, he tells himself, it’s just a game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a beautiful fish, my beautiful wonderful fish daughter, my shining star in the darkness, my everyth


	4. you see, this is the internet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abe needs a bit of help from the outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure i'll do anything else in this continuity, but ok, just take this

The phone rings once, twice, three times. Abe winds the cord around one finger, occasionally sparing a glance out the window, when he thinks they won’t notice. He knows they probably will, regardless--but he has to keep _some_ control over this. Like mapping your way through the world you’ve been thrust into: you might not have command of your own limbs, but at least you know where you are.

Abe’s life is weird.

She picks up on the fourth ring, a cheerful “Hello?” that he hates to disappoint. He takes a deep breath anyway and starts:

“Uh, yeah, Baba?”

“That’s me!”

“Yeah, this is Abe...so, do you remember how all those glitches were trying to kill me way back when?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Well, uh.”

He steals another look at the window; as if summoned, a grayish flickering _something_ scrapes at the glass, emitting a cry like a dozen Pokémon screaming at once. He thinks those jumbles of letters might work as its eyes.

" _O_ _ooooh,_ " says Baba. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“I’d _like_ to be okay,” he says, sinking to the ground. “You don’t happen to know how to make this not happen, do you?”

Baba hums in thought. “No,” she chirps, and Abe groans. “But!”

“But what?”

“But I think I know somebody who does.”

 

* * *

 

Her name is Alice.

Her name is Alice, and she knows the Voices just as well as he does. Half the time her Pokémon make themselves heard in the background of a call. She prefaces her knowledge of Kanto’s PCs with “but I’m not a supervillain or anything, I swear--that’s my dad.” She says she’s heard something about a virtual Kanto--says Professor Oak disappeared to work on it awhile back, Green says right after he got his gym--but it takes Abe a few minutes to convince her it’s where he’s from. Another ten after that fielding all her amazed questioning before he manages to mention the problem at hand.

“They’ve been after me since, well, since a long time ago.” (He wonders, privately, if it started that day at the PC--but that’s a bit much to tell someone he’s barely met.) “But they’ve been getting worse. And I’ve asked, and nobody sees them except when I’m around.” He sighs. “They’ll rip this place up looking for me.”

Here’s where Professor Oak had almost seemed to pity him: even knowing his world and the people in it were just data, he still didn’t understand their sacrifice? What use was protecting a place that had never existed?

Instead Alice says, “Do you think they’d stop if you left?”

Abe blinks. “What, if I got out of Kanto? I mean, maybe--”

“No, not that,” she says, maybe a bit too quickly. “I mean if you got out of your universe.”

“...what?”

“Well, they can’t follow, can they? And once you’re out here, I mean, I don’t know how much you can do from the outside but you can try to figure out how to stop them from here, right?“ She pauses, something he can’t put a name to in her voice. “Does that make sense?”

“I guess, yeah. I mean. I can try it.”

(When he said his life was weird he didn’t mean it as a challenge. Once she starts explaining, though, a nervous excitement bleeding into her voice, something he’s heard in his own at the verge of an accomplishment--well, he decides then, it’s better than doing nothing.)

 

* * *

 

Not every glitch is out to get him.

Most of them are, granted. Abe still remembers flashes of the Battle Tent--the sudden stumble into darkness, shadowy figures wearing his Pokémon's faces, something ripping at his mind loud enough to drown out the Voices' screams as the cycle tightens around him, one-two-three-break, one-two-three-break--

But he's done his research, in the months since his victory. And despite his patchy memory he knows, without a doubt, that it was his Charizard who got him out of there.

So. Abe aligns himself between an overhanging ledge and a wall, and checks his belt and bags one last time. Then he ties the blindfold tight over his eyes, fumbling with the brand-new cellular phone as he presses it to one ear. (Alice had sounded so surprised that he didn't have one, but he can't say he gets it--the thing's like a brick.) He only hesitates a bit before saying, “So now what?”

“I mean, I’m not really an expert on universe stuff,” says Alice, “PC stuff probably, Pokémon stuff sometimes…this method might not even work in our reality.” She pauses. “But--I guess the fact that both ours and theirs are memetic in nature should make enough crossover that it should work. Are you okay with taking the chance?”

Abe shrugs. “I mean, it’s not like I have many options.”

“Alright,” says Alice. “Then I’m gonna need you to run for twelve hours.”

“Uh, what?”

“In place,” she amends, “like, right up against that wall you found. Tell me when you start, I’ve got a timer.”

“Okay,” he says, and does. “But _why?_ ”

“That’s...kind of a really long explanation.”

“We’ve got twelve hours,” Abe points out.

“Yeah, but you. Uh. You really don’t want to listen to me explaining for that long.”

Abe doesn’t press it. After forty days straight traveling across Kanto, walking the same circles over and over, fighting the same battles a hundred times--really, twelve hours doesn’t sound too bad. Still. There’s only so much he can entertain himself, jogging in place, occasionally checking his peripherals for the glitches. A few buildings have blurred in the distance, but nothing seems inclined to approach him here. They’re just a distant reminder, a silent warning--he thinks of the blackouts again and shudders.

Better to leave before anyone else gets involved.

“How long’s it been?” Abe asks, eventually.

Alice pauses. “About...twenty-seven minutes?”

Abe groans. He’d slump against the wall but it’s hard to do that while running. “Okay,” he says, and pauses. “Talk to me?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, if you want.” He shrugs--it’s almost easy to forget she’s not right here beside him. “I don’t mind. You said I’m gonna show up where you are, right? If I wanted to not listen to you I’d be trying something else.”

For a few seconds, Alice’s line is silent. Then: “Huh,” she says. “So you are…” She trails off awkwardly, and the quiet stretches between them. “Alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” says Alice, and something like enthusiasm creeps back into her voice. “Okay, so you already know about parallel universes--”

 

* * *

 

In the back of his mind, Abe’s scale tends to max out at _not-too-bad._ And, sure, that’s one way to survive things. Carried him halfway across Kanto, to be sure. But--but, Abe thinks now: maybe it’s safe to go a few steps above that, when you can share the time with someone else.

 

* * *

 

It’s less of a jump and more of a slipping sideways, just trusting in the space between heartbeats, watching as each world blurs and reforms erratically around him. The twin Kantos first, laid out in double--then another, an atmosphere that’s almost achingly familiar, like he knows it from a distant dream--

He arrives twenty feet in the air, gets the chance to look around like in a cartoon before smashing into the grass half a second later. Rubbing at his head, he sits up, and finds that someone’s looking at him.

“Wow, um,” she says, “are you okay?...Abe?”

“Yeah,” he responds, eloquently. “Alice?”

“Yeah.”

She looks at him for a long, long moment, head tilted slightly like she’s analyzing everything about him. Whatever she sees there, she must be okay with it, because at last she reaches out a hand to help him up. He takes it, taking in his surroundings as she helps him to his feet. It’s a lot like his own Kanto, he thinks, maybe a bit brighter in color. At least he’ll know his way around. He just wonders where he’s supposed to go from here.

But as soon as he has that thought Alice nods at him, gives him half a smile. “I’m glad you made it,” she says. “I already have a couple ideas…--”

Because, Abe reminds himself as he walks beside her, it really is easier with someone who understands.


	5. chosen by default

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> olden semific

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to upload this here when i wrote it, whoops

They know the importance of names.

That’s why Evan’s surprised when the Voices choose him, and on top of that don’t butcher the spelling as his hand wavers over the brand-new trainer card. That’s why Azure holds up four names as an offering, slips one of an old Host’s among them, and five minutes later watches in disbelief as a hesitant _Tux_ shakes out of Evan’s mouth, as he paces circles around the Professor’s table. That’s why the voices take to the miracle that is Fox immediately, and why they scramble for nicknames for the ones their lack of coordination betrays, and why, on the path to Victory Road, Evan takes so much pride in the team he’s managed to gather.

It’s why, timeline after timeline, the other kid from Pallet Town escapes the Voices’ grasp.

It’s why, in an arena at the edge of the universe, a boy crumples up _Rusty_ deep in his heart and cloaks it in _Antares_ and lets it lead him back to control.

It’s why, when Evan bares his name to a Trainer aglow with pixels and entropy, the Olden reaches out and takes it.

* * *

dark.

he’s caught in the gaps between restarts, a dizzying whirlwind of cherrygrove-battle-cherrygrove, the flickering silhouette of a trainer reaching out taking him by the shoulders and putting a spare hand through his heart, the same wild encounter over and over, the sudden silence of the Voices as one starlight-shining presence steps forward and waves them away and rewinds time around him. he thinks about trying to go home, except he can’t remember where his home is, or what his mom looks like, or what he looks like, or even his name.

and in the aftermath-past-present, when he hands half his money to a shifting mass of shapes and everything goes black, he feels something like _drifting_ –

except: there’s a Venusaur, standing between him and the not-a-trainer, vines wreathed into a makeshift shield. he’s pretty sure he knows it. so, too, does he recall the face of the ghost floating opposite them–wasn’t i meant to come back for you?–as the Venusaur slashes toward it, weathers hits over and over until, finally, it’s vanished. the not-a-trainer still has five backups at her belt, but the confident angles of its stance have eroded into something half-impressed and half-furious.

and for a second he pictures a face.

it’s a face he hasn’t seen in a long time, but he knows that face, knows the deep blue hair around an encouraging smile–he _knows_ her, in a world without names, like she’s the only thing it deigned to leave behind–

–Azure–

_wasn’t i meant to come back for you?_

_wasn’t i meant to come back for you?_

_wasn’t i–_

* * *

A few miles away a girl opens her eyes.


	6. look, everybody gets cravings, ok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul learns that, even after months of working at Pika-Pizza, some things can still surprise him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a completely serious fic about a completely serious situation. inspired by [this post](http://origamihoshi.tumblr.com/post/146476627305/im-loving-this-idea-that-paul-has-just-been)

“I’m thinking about making you Employee of the Month, Paul.”

“Thank you, sir,” says Paul, not sure he likes where this is going. He’s on his way to becoming one of the few trainers with authority to deliver pizza to the Champion. If his boss wanted to compliment him on that, he would have done so back around the second badge.

“I mean it! You’re so dedicated--there’s no task you wouldn’t step away from, isn’t that right?”

Paul hesitates. “Yes, sir?”

"That’s my boy! Oh, and Paul, while you're here," says Paul's boss, pushing a large pizza box into his hands, "do you mind delivering this? It's an order from someone named..." He squints at the receipt. "Mewtwo?"

"What," says Paul.

"Funny, the things people name their kids these days! Thanks, Paul, you're one of my best, you know."

"Uh," says Paul.

His boss claps him on the back. "Well, go on then! Don't want that getting cold, do we?"

Paul's half a mile from the building before the situation really registers, and half a mile more before he realizes that the directions lead him straight into a cave, so if this is a prank, well, it's by a really dedicated prankster. Well then. He stands up straighter, straightens his cap, and walks into the cave with all the authority a pizza boy can muster, which isn't much. Still: he's come halfway across the region for this job, and he’s not going to stop now.

 

So. Cave; way too many wild battles, which are hard to handle without dropping the pizza; surfing--in a cave--which is near-impossible to handle without dropping the pizza; and finally, Paul comes across a smallish cavern that just feels...ominous. The Voices don’t seem to care, of course. They denounce the gods all the time and yet they’re scared of the smallest bug-types; their priorities are nothing if not stupid.

Paul takes a deep breath, and clears his throat. “Hello?” he says. “Pizza delivery?”

Something moves in the darkness, and steps closer.

He’s encountered powerful Pokémon before; half the time when he blacks out it’s in the wild. But it’s another thing entirely to meet one like this, whose eyes glint like it’s never known a moment of calm, and whose proximity makes something taste like ozone and makes the Voices go in and out of focus. “Here you go,” he says. “One...one, uh.”

**Large pepperoni?** Mewtwo provides, in an echoing and intimidating voice that should have at least ordered barbecue or something. Paul nods. Mewtwo just straight-up levitates the box halfway across the room into its hands. That's, Paul thinks. That's great.

“Uh. Thank you for buying from Pika-Pizza,” Paul says, and runs.

(Days later, after the Voices have left him and when he finally has the chance to change out of his uniform, he finds several thousand-Poké coins in the lining of one of his pockets. All he can think is, _why does it even have those._ )

 


	7. parallel lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the way things should be.

Amber opens their eyes to a world that flickers like a dying sun. They don’t know exactly what went wrong, and that’s easily the worst part. They’re the one who’s supposed to know, aren’t they? Keeping things sturdy, keeping things _balanced._ They’re supposed to have things under control, even when the others--the others--are they gone? No, they can feel the entry points for their nearest siblings, here so close to the gods’ birthplace; and searching outward, all the others, a dozen pathways shimmering where they’ve gone. The gods have been here before, and will again--

And at the edge of Amber’s senses, something prickling, cloying, that sinks into the edges of their presence and rips and tears _finally, finally, finally--_

\---

Helix? You’re on the way to that new Host, aren’t you?

Just making sure someone’s got it covered. Something’s trying to drain my power.

_like what?_

...If I knew what I’d have taken care of it already.

_sinnoh thing? new region thing? voices thing? ok i am usually not a gambling man,_

Helix.

_but i would bet this handful of weird human money that it’s a voices thing._

Helix, you don’t have hands.

_i’m right aren’t i._

Look. I just need you to keep things under control for like five seconds. Can you do that much?

_hey calm down, i sent myself to him already, i’m keeping an eye on him, it’s fine._

\---

A few hours later:

_well,_

Are you fucking serious.

\---

So Helix is beyond useless. Meanwhile, Amber can’t exactly ask Dome for help either; just a moment ago she used up so much energy on that other boy that it’s a wonder she doesn’t go straight back to hibernation. They would call on their other, more distant siblings, but most of them have sworn to, as the official statement said, _stay the hell out of that war bullshit._ The most communication they can get, to their surprise, is with Drive.

 

That bad, huh? 

Not yet. But you know how it went the last time I said that.

Yeah. 

...Well?

I can’t help you with this one, Amber. 

What? Why not?

I-- _can’t_ . You have my full honesty, pledge and promise, true to all that was your Predecessor. I have a reason, but for now, I simply can’t. Against this, there’s nothing I can do. 

Is this about…? Well, in that case--can you at least finally tell me where you were all that time, Drive? Where you came from?

Drive?

Drive?

(Later, all Amber can think about is the word _your._ )

\---

They leave a piece of themself at the Bug-Catching Contest and wait, not knowing what else to do. Maybe dealing with humans so much has skewed their scale, because they’ve lived hundreds of millions of years and these few days are the longest time of their life.

It’s not just the drain on their power, either; it’s like something’s trying to steal what they are, tearing until it emerges from their skin. They start to wonder: is this what it’s like for all the others? Is this why Helix and Dome fought all those years? Always with something hanging off you, like a parasite, distorting all the laws of the world you’re supposed to defend? Their domain is **balance** ; their parlance is beginnings and ends; they live in the start, and they remain after all else disappears. They’re supposed to be alone.

\---

After a few near-misses the Voices and the boy stumble towards them, and he even wins the contest this time, that other child with the Ledian rather politely admitting defeat. His name is Evan, they know; there’s something that glows about his presence, and often he bites his lip, and he rarely complains when the Voices shove him into walls. There’s still light in his eyes, though he looks distant, like there’s something else on his mind. But--there’s something _wrong_ about him, in a way the other Hosts haven’t quite mimicked, like it’s not their effect but his own. If they look at him from the right angles, it’s like his essence doesn’t quite fit the shape he’s in, like his name isn’t quite true, like there’s something else.

“Congratulations,” says the man, handing the piece of Amber over with little ceremony. “Your prize is--”

There’s a _lurch_ and the tearing reaches a crescendo and the world tints like something’s put a veil of stardust across their vision and there’s something beneath the boy’s skin something that slips through them and is was and becomes--

(AMBER OMG lord amber??? WHAT that’s gotta be a glitch right AMBER HI AMBER-- _you’re--_ **_finally it’s you it’s you it’s you_ ** )

The Voices barely brush across them in those few seconds before the boy, before Evan, _that’s not his name_ shrugs one shoulder, casually, and slips the self-shard into his bag. He doesn’t know what they are, save for what the Voices have yelled at him and what _it_ must have whispered, if he can hear it at all--he doesn’t _know_ but there’s something coiled around him so tightly they almost can’t pick out the difference, except one is barely-suppressed grief and the other is boiling over _all wrong all wrong their fault their fault_ and _why why why why why_ beneath a veneer of calm and nothing and empty, their power reflected back at them through a thousand broken mirrors, and the thing beneath his skin says,

**_There_ ** **you are,**

and for the first time they remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here i am, still writing about olden in 2017


	8. old writing on new walls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they don’t know what brought them here anymore, but they’re making the best of it.

They aren’t quite sure what to do once the other Presence lets go.

One frame, its grip is the strongest it’s ever been, a driving force of **[anger, wrong, broken, jealousy,** **_wrong_ ** **]** ; the next frame, it’s so distant that they could hardly detect it if it hadn’t spent millennia with them. It unfurls as many ties as it can from the mass of [other side]; seems to shrink on itself a bit, flickering between formes. And, worst of all, it doesn’t even say anything.

Once they register what happened, the panic sets in almost immediately. There was a time before it awoke, of course; that time, objectively, spanned the vast majority of their lives. But the “back-then” feels like another reality entirely, like their existence was cleaved in two, the together-but-alone and the _purpose_ , the beginning and the hastened end. They were told--they _knew--_ that things would change after they won, which had no choice but to happen; that things would become how they **should have been** ; that nothing could lessen that perfection, either before or after.

They’re not sure if they were wrong or if it was a lie.

_What happened?_ they ask, reaching out through what little link remains. _This isn’t the world ~~(~~_ ~~ _you)_ ~~ _we wanted. Did something happen? Are things broken even more? Did they win? What do we do, how do we fix it? Did we lose?_

Then another, even worse thought comes to them: _Did we do something wrong?_

That, somehow, seems to get its attention. It regards them strangely for a moment, staring with innumerable eyes. **...No,** it says, finally. **It was nothing you did.**

The remaining connection closes with a heavy finality, enough that its Presence fades almost beyond recognition. They can talk to it all they want, but it won’t hear, or perhaps it just won’t listen. So, for the first time in their new life, the Glitches find themselves alone.

* * *

They freeze for a moment, trying to regroup. Part of them retreats into  [other side]; another part paces the shores of the place they were born, back and forth, an echo of the way [not-them] tries to run after them, sometimes. They watch as the world resolves itself into something else--shifted, but not the world ~~it~~ they wanted, not the way that ~~they were told~~ made sense. It’s gone, but somehow they’re still here.

_What do we do now? What do we do now…?_

_Do we remember how it was before?_

_It’s different now. “Before” stopped-being._

_Doesn’t matter, we don’t want that._

_(We can go back--)_

_How? Why? What’s the point?_

_Because obviously the_ **_now_ ** _isn’t working, the way it left us--_

~~_what if it was lying?_ ~~

~~_what if it didn’t care about us at all?_ ~~

~~_was it just using us? what were we to it, anyway? did it matter?_ ~~

_..._

_It doesn’t lie, though. We’re not sure it knows how._

_Do we even_ care _? Obviously something went wrong._

_Maybe--_

_It changed, we think._

The thought gives them pause. There was a time before it awoke, and they lived for a long time before ever encountering it. But it claimed it was from the beginning of the universe, and had seen more than they could know. What had upset it, most of all, was change: the world shifting around it and not even to its vision, people having the gall to Create things and not even **listen**. They thought the same--or at least, they thought they thought it--and now, looking back...

The idea of that Presence changing...

_How come?_

_It must have been something the [not-us] did. The...small ones? The kind that don’t live so long?_

_What do they call themselves?_

_Mostly “humans,” we think?_

_So--how? They don’t even...make any sense. They’re not like us. How could they…?_

_Not sure. It made us talk to a couple of them a lot, though._

_The one that didn’t know we were with him?_

_That one, and the blue one…_

_They must have said something._

_So, how?_

_Not sure. They don’t make much sense._

_They have all these Ideas, and they move too fast, and they don’t understand us, either._

_They can’t, we think._

_But...does that mean we can’t understand them?_

_Maybe. That’s stupid._

_They’re not from [other side]. We don’t think they_ can _think like us. Too much space between._

_The only way they could make sense is if they were us, or we were them._

They think about it. From where they’ve divided, pieces of themselves lingering in the worlds they still have anchors in, they watch leaves shrivel and fall and reincarnate all over again. Eventually, one part of them speaks, a thought taking form:

_What if we tried that?_

_Tried what?_

_Well--mostly, we were thinking…_

_What if--_

_What if we tried being one of them?_

* * *

Cici keeps saying she’s cheating at PUNCH KICK BATTLE 2, but Xena’s pretty sure he’s just jealous. Besides, when she figured out he really _couldn’t_ pull off frame-perfect unprogrammed combos every time (and neither could his big sis, or anyone they asked), she toned it down a little bit. He won a match out of the last five, and she wasn’t even going easy on him! So when, after the word WINNER flashes on screen, he puts his controller down and turns to her, she half expects him to start complaining again, even though he’s never really serious about it.

“I’ve been wondering something,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“That thing the adults say about why video games weren’t allowed...is that an urban legend, too, like Bill’s secret garden? Or is it real? I mean, we haven’t really, uh.”

Everyone knows why Neo-Kanto outlawed video games, twenty years ago. After the whole thing with the Voices and the End and the universe merger, some people started theorizing that the reason the Glitches seemed to prefer the virtual Kanto was because the coding for the PC was so broken. Then people started trying to use lowercase-g glitches from video games as summoning circles for the uppercase ones. So, of course, the games got banned. Neo-Kanto couldn’t seem to do anything about Team Rocket despite them coming back again and again and again, but the Glitches were an easy thing to stir fear about.

“It’s...well, kinda?” says Xena, fidgeting. “I think they _are_ kinda drawn to stuff like that because it...feels like home, sort of. But it’s not like--that guy in Sinnoh who tried to summon Giratina. It just--happens, and it’s not like _they_ think it’s weird, so I’m sure they must be confused when everyone freaks out.”

“Huh,” says Cici. “It’s just that we’ve been doing this every week, and it hasn’t happened, so I...wondered.”

She knows the answer to that unspoken question. She’s pretty sure he knows it too; he’s good at drawing connections between things, even if he gets all humble about it sometimes. The Glitches don’t need to show up at Cici’s house, no matter how well they break the games, because Xena’s already there.

“Well, you know,” says Xena, shrugging.

“Mmh.”

They sit there for a minute; Xena backs out of the menu and watches the game go into attract mode, the characters doing weird copies of Pokémon moves on their own.

It makes her think of something.“So!” she says, clapping her hands. “Since our journey’s starting tomorrow, and I haven’t asked you yet...which Pokémon are you gonna pick?”

“I don’t know,” Cici says, raising an eyebrow. “Which one will you pick?”

“I dunno, which one are you picking?”

“Ladies first.”

“Oh, no, I simply _couldn’t_.”

“No, _madam_ ,” says Cici, trying to put on a dorky accent and failing as he laughs at himself. “I _insist,_ you see.”

“Okay, fine, _fine._ Jeez…! How ‘bout we say it at the same time? Ready? One, two--”

She says “Charmander” at the same time he says “Bulbasaur.” Cici groans, sinking backwards into the couch, though he’s trying not to laugh.

“Every _time_ ,” he says. “You even pick the super-effective one!”

Xena shrugs, giggling. “Sorry. I’d pick it even if you went with Squirtle, you know. I...met a Charizard once, I think. It’s complicated.”

She falls silent for a moment, thinking about it. Cici glances sideways at her. “Hey, Xena?” he asks. “Are you...apprehensive, at all? I mean--it’s a Pokémon journey, everyone goes on one, I’m certainly not nervous, at all, I have everything planned out. But...are you...good?”

“What? Oh, yeah. I’m fine. I’ve been looking forward to this for, like, _ever_.” She hesitates. “But, Cee? Can I ask you something?”

“Mm?”

“Can you--promise me?” she asks. “That...this isn’t going to change anything? That--that we can still have this, afterwards--that nothing will come between us? That we can still--come home, after our journey, and play video games, and have fun? Can you promise it’s gonna be okay?”

Cici looks at her, and then leans on her shoulder. “Nothing’s going to take this away,” he says.

“No matter what?”

“No matter what. I promise.”


End file.
